Sir, - I was a bit annoyed by the tone of Frank Millar's report, "Ulster-Scots may yet be part of all things Irish" (The Irish Times, October 19th). He refers to a document drawn up by Lord Laird, co-chair of the cross-Border implementation body on language, and submitted to Mr Dermot McCarthy, Secretary-General to the Government, announcing plans to give equal status to both Irish and Ulster-Scots in a broad range of governmental and educational contexts in the South as well as in the North, if I understand his report.
Mr Millar seems to find it amusing that, among other things, job applicants in the official sector may have to fulfil language qualifications in both Ulster-Scots and Irish and that the curriculum here in the Republic may have to reflect the Ulster-Scots language and heritage as well as the Irish Gaelic heritage.
The article seems to be mocking proponents of the Irish language, saying in effect: "Now do you see where your pushing for equal status for Irish and for parity of esteem for both cultural traditions have got you?" But Mr Millar does not seem to have thought things through.
If Lord Laird's suggestions were to be taken seriously, given the demographic spread of the Ulster-Scots, Irish speakers from rural areas where Ulster-Scots was spoken would meet the requirements for jobs requiring bilingual qualifications, whereas English speakers coming from urban areas where neither language was spoken at home or learned in school would be at a double disadvantage. Thus Irish-speaking "nationalists" from areas in which Ulster-Scots is spoken - some of them in the Republic itself, in Donegal - might have a distinct advantage over middleclass urban Protestants from Northern Ireland in applying for many jobs in the official sector. Does Mr Millar find that amusing? I don't.
As for the introduction of the Ulster-Scots language and cultural tradition in the curriculum of the schools in the Republic, one has to remember that the Ulster-Scots language is a form of Broad Scots or Lallans, the language of the lowlands of Scotland with a rich literary heritage stretching back hundreds of years. This is the language of the "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled", of Robbie Burns and of Hugh Mac Diarmuid - hardly the language of imperial Britain. I dare say that it would do no harm to introduce that culture into the school curriculum for those children whose only exposure to Scottish history may have been the film Braveheart.
In the context of Scottish devolution and the coming together of the Gaelic-speaking communities of Ireland and Scotland after 400 years of cultural separation, it is time that the culture of lowland Scotland also be part of the educational experience of Irish children North and South.
It's time to stop playing political or ethnic football with the cultural heritages of the people of these islands and to work wholeheartedly to promote genuine "parity of esteem" for the communities associated with those traditions. It would honor the memory of the late Scottish statesman Donald Dewar and that of another Scotsman dear to many of us Irish people - James Connolly. - Yours, etc.,
Seamas O Direain, Department of Modern Irish, University College, Cork.